By Doug Ferguson
Tiger Woods walked off the 18th green as a Masters champion for the fifth time, a major champion for the 15th time, and the sensation was unlike anything he had ever felt.
More memorable than any shot the 8-iron that trickled by the hole at the 16th was the decisive blow - was the purposeful stride toward his son, grabbing Charlie with both arms, lifting the boy and turning from side to side.
His mother was next. His daughter. His loyal support staff. And then a lineup of players outside the clubhouse, some of them in green jackets. They had been upstairs in the locker room reserved for champions, yet they shared a feeling with the entire golf world. Memories gave way to reality. “That’s going to be in people’s minds forever,” Rickie Fowler said last month, just two days before the Masters was postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Was it his biggest win? It would be hard to rate that over his first Masters title in 1997, a “hello, world” moment not tied to advertising. Woods set 20 records that signaled the arrival of a brand of dominance never seen in golf. The most historical? His 2001 victory at Augusta gave him a sweep of the four majors in a span of 294 days. He stands alone there.
This was no less significant because of what it meant - to Woods, to his sport, to peers who grew up idolizing him and to a worldwide audience that had reason to believe it might never happen again.
“I had just an amazing amount of emails and texts that were flowing in,” Woods said in a conference call leading up to the Masters. “But I was more surprised by the amount of videos of people watching the Masters and seeing their reaction when I hit the shot on 16 or when I made the putt, whether it was on airplanes or in airports or restaurants.
“The amount of emotion that people were showing, that’s what blew my mind.”
That’s what made this Masters different from his other four, this major different from the other 14.
Adam Scott doesn’t usually stick around when he’s finished with a major. One exception was in 2006 after the U.S. Open at Winged Foot when he was headed for the airport and turned around when close friend Geoff Ogilvy emerged the winner.
He finished Sunday at Augusta National about the time all hell broke loose at Amen Corner.
“You got a sense, as he was kind of taking the lead on the back nine, that something special could be happening,” Scott said. “There was